In The Company of Solitude
by LivinJgrl123
Summary: Segen leaves safe company after Gerry is reunited with his family, in favor of surviving - while dealing with her illness and handicap - on her own.
1. Chapter 1

**I own nuthin. Nuthin except what's obviously mine. Couldn't help writing this :) Rating might go up someday, but who knows? Well, thanks for reading - more chapters will be added, hopefully sooner rather than later. Lemme know whatcha think, m'kay? mkay. Thnx.  
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Segen watched as Gerry clambered out of the boat as the snow continued to fall. She ignored the chill in favor of smiling as he went to embrace his children, his wife - his family. Her smile was only half-false, though. She was momentarily distracted by a sharp pain in her chest. It made the falseness in her smile come out a bit more, but she was happy for Gerry. She was. He'd saved her life. He'd gotten to come back to his family.

But the pang in her chest distracted her from the ache in her left wrist, where her hand had once been. It didn't hurt as bad anymore, but the ache that was left over from the sudden and unexpected amputation would probably never fade - not _really_, because you just don't get over something like that. And she knew this. She understood it all too well.

But what she _didn't _understand was the irregular, erratic throbbing in her chest. It was like her heart was _hurting, _hurting more than she actually was. She wondered if it had been from the injection, from the sickness she'd been given, in order to survive in the world full of those gone-rabid shells that used to house human beings. She figured it wasn't that, though. Because the pain she was feeling was somewhat familiar. Familiar enough that she pushed it to the back of her mind and focused on what was going on outside of her existence.

Gerry pulled away from his kids, a smile on his face as Segen clambered out of the boot and steadied herself in the shallow water. The sand crunched under her boots as she stood up straight, cracking her neck as she twisted it from side to side as the man who had saved her from becoming one of those - those _things_ - turned his head to look at her.

Segen didn't think that he knew how lucky he was at that moment. Maybe he had some idea, but he had his _family_ - his daughters, his wife - in his arms and they weren't dead. She had lost people - friends. Long-dead family. And he was _so lucky_.

"Karin, girls, little man," he said, not leaving them - only smiling at the Israeli soldier as they looked up at her. The younger looking one's eyes shot up towards her head, and Segen had to resist the urge to frown back down at her. Segen didn't like children that much. No - that wasn't the right way to say it. Children - it didn't matter how old they were - made her . . . made her feel _uncomfortable_. They didn't know any better. They didn't have any idea what the real world was like. They didn't know _shit_. And that - **that** was what she didn't like about children. They weren't _supposed _to know anything. They got in the way, they didn't know what was what - she knew this. And _that_ was why she had to keep herself from frowning._  
_

"Who's this, Gerry?"

The woman, who the Israeli soldier presumed to be his wife, Karin, looked exhausted - as exhausted as _she_ felt. She probably was, from all the worrying she must have done while waiting for her husband to come back to her.

"This woman, she's from Israel," Gerry answered. "She's a soldier. 'Name's Segen."

"You're a soldier?" Karin asked. She seemed dubious. But she was used to that.

"You're name is _Segen_?" the smallest one asked.

"You're a soldier?" the older girl wondered.

She tried her best not to sigh at their naïvety, despite everything that had happened since - since whenever this whole disaster _had happened_.

The boy kept quiet. He just continued to watch her, holding the older girl's hand. This didn't slip Gerry's notice, but Karin and the younger sister were somewhat oblivious.

Segen just smiled as best she could and nodded.

"I'm Karin," the woman said, remembering manners that usually would have been forgotten at a time like this - with rabid humans (zombies. She had to remember to call them _zombies_, since there was no cure, and they weren't really people anymore) running around and biting people who weren't terminally ill.

Immediately, she wiped her mind of any thought relating to what the W.H.O doctors had done to her - had injected her with.

Thinking about it wouldn't do anyone any good.

"And this is Tommy," the small Hispanic boy just continued to look at her at the mention of his name. "These two are Constance and Rachel. It's . . . nice to meet you, Segen." Karin had pointed out each of the children with slight movements of her chin, indicating which name belonged to whom.

Segen nodded. Her smile eventually faded as the family, once again, embraced. She felt awkward, watching this. It felt private. It felt like her presence was unnecessary. She'd done her part, she'd gotten rescued. She'd gotten out of there. She was sick, but she wasn't one of those _things_ (zombies).

She turned to leave, to get back on the boat (because she really didn't picture herself staying on an aircraft carrier or with Gerry's family, even if she had tried to save him a few times, but she was, essentially, useless, and _no help _to anyone with just one hand, even if it was her right hand, and she _was_ right handed), because she wanted to get _out_ of there.

But the little one, Constance - the smallest of the three children - spoke up before she could leave. No need to keep the soldiers who held a backpack of supplies for her waiting.

"Is Se - Se - is that your _real_ name? Are you gonna leave now? Because if you saved Daddy then you can stay with us back on that ship."

Karin looked like she didn't really care what happened to the soldier, and that was fine.

Gerry opened his mouth to answer, but the Israeli could do it herself.

She was useless to _them_, as a fighter, as a soldier - but she still had her voice. Her vocal cords hadn't been cut out of her throat.

Segen shook her head, the expression on her face growing grim. There was no trace of happiness in it, unlike the looks of the family reunited. She was not a part of this family. She couldn't be.

She was _useless_; who would want a soldier with _one hand_? A limp, a twitch, a stomach bug - those were things you could have that wouldn't make you completely useless. You could deal with this.

A woman with one hand?

_Worthless._

"I will be heading off on my own," Segen answered the girl, ignoring the beginnings of Gerry's protests. She silenced him with a look - no, a glare was more like it. "You won't see me again."

"Why? You can still fight - they'd let you stay, wouldn't they, Daddy?" The older girl - Rachel - looked to her father. She looked shaken, pale. Just like her mother. The boy was solemn - quiet. He looked like the Israeli had - when she had lost everyone. She knew that look.

She could only imagine what pain he was feeling, yet she did her best not to. She didn't know this boy. It was not her place to guess the amount of pain that he was in over losing his family - or whomever he had lost - though it looked like he'd been taken in by Gerry's family.

"I have a backpack, of supplies," Segen jerked her head in the direction of the boat, which was still waiting on them - she was sure they were all going back, but maybe they could drop her off somewhere nearby. Maybe. "If I can be dropped off somewhere away from the ports, I will be fine." Probably not, but she could make her own.

"No, we can take you back to the carrier," a soldier, from behind the family, called to her. Her eyes went to him. "You need a few more things, before you go. 'Sides, don't you want a bunk for the night?"

Segen didn't know what to say. Honestly, she didn't want to say anything. She'd never spoken so much around people she knew so little about. It irked her, but Gerry had saved her. Saved her from becoming one of those _things _(zombies), saved her from being left behind, had helped her with amputated hand - if it weren't for him, she would have been dead.

Dead and gone, most likely one of those things.

"C'mon, since you're only staying for a while, I'm sure Thierry will let you stay a night and give you some more things - you won't survive long with just that little pack." Gerry gave her a half-smile.

The idea _was_ tempting, but Segen could take care of herself, now that she was infected with something else, something from the W.H.O doctors - now that she was camouflaged.

But they were having none of her reasons - reasons that, in the soldier's and family's eyes, seemed like excuses.

_Hardly_.

Segen shook her head, helpless, apparently, as it seemed that her fate, for the time being, was decided.

_Americans, _she thought, with a sigh as the family headed towards the boat, hearing another not far off - probably for the soldiers.

Were these people always so insistent?


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it.**

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Gerry had somehow managed to get Segen a bunk, no matter how much she had protested that someone else needed it more than her. The man Gerry use to work for - Thierry, she thought was his name, the man of the United Nations - had declared that after going through all she had gone through - being bitten, losing her hand, being infected with a terminal illness in order not to get attacked by those soulless shells wandering (_zombies_) about in the world outside the aircraft carrier - had cleared a space for her. He'd had doctors attend to her left wrist, but there was nothing more they could do for her, other than to provide her with painkillers for when she chose to depart. The bunk she'd been given was among that of a large, somewhat whiny family and another, smaller, quieter one that took what was given without complaint.

Gerry and his family were to also depart in the morning, to a safe zone at Freeport, Nova Scotia. He had been treated for his illness - for the pathogen he had infected himself with - but she had done the "dumb thing", as one of them would probably forever call it. She had declined the rather persistent offer of being offered a treatable pathogen. Instead, she had requested something permanent (one that would not spread), something that would kill her slowly - only because she knew she wouldn't be able to stay in one of those safe zones, if any at all truly existed (and if they did, she didn't trust them to stay safe for longer than a month or so).

The W.H.O doctors had berated her for her apparent stupidity, but when her mind hadn't been changed by nearly ten minutes of attempted (and failed) persuasion, they had provided her with something that would give her time, and not kill her right away, despite their grumblings that she had just requested a death wish.

Segen had reminded them as kindly as she was able to that everybody met death eventually; you could only avoid its meeting you for so long. And when she had told them that she didn't plan on staying in a safe zone if one truly existed.

The female doctor had told her that the safe zones would, indeed, be safe, hence the name.

But the Israeli soldier had known better.

The doctor hadn't let her choose the disease, of course. She had merely stated that she would be giving her a sample (a sample that would kill her, if not for a while) of a disease that one would get from infected genes, from the parents. They had told her that this was needed, but after seeing that it was no use, they'd told her everything she needed to know (she had memorized them, memorized the information, memorized the name, memorized everything they had told her about it) about it and had infected her with it.

But, in order to, they'd had a sample of an infected (dead) patient's DNA in the lab (why not? Seeing as how they had _everything else _in the labs; Gerry had gone back and had gotten the doctors samples the terminal, _untreatable _diseases that would, in time, kill her) injected into her bloodstream. And this sample had been in two doses, unlike Gerry's, just so they were sure she was infected.

They had told her that they wished her a quick death - in the highest respects - and if she lived long enough to suffer from the symptoms of the later stages of the genetic disease (which was technically _not_ genetic in her case, seeing as how she had been perfectly healthy beforehand), that she die sooner rather than later, instead of being _actually_ killed by the disease itself.

The whining and bickering between the two families eventually tore Segen out of her thoughts, distracting her from the fact that she had signed her death warrant, willingly so.

The larger family - the family of five - and the smaller family - the family of three - were getting louder now, and Segen's head was beginning to hurt. She knew where her backpack was - in the main hub, where all the computers and men and women and military operatives kept going through to to speak to their superiors. She also knew that if she asked for it, she _might_ be able to get a boat or helicopter to drop her off somewhere uninhabited by humans (preferably; she wasn't about to take any chances). Fat chance, she knew, but she wanted to try.

Someone else was welcome to have the bottom bunk, surrounded by the cause of headaches - these people really didn't realize that they just needed some rest, but she was too tired to tell them to be quiet, to allow _her_ some sleep (after they had stared oh-so politely at the place her left hand used to be before she had climbed on her bunk after showering and cleaning up a bit).

Having managed to grab a few hours (at least), Segen swung her legs over the side of her bunk and reached for her boots at the end of her bunk. She had been given a bigger backpack - one that she was used to carrying ammo in - but it was lighter, considering that in it were provisions and _not_ weapons and ammunition - and, along with that, some food, a spare shirt, set of pants, socks, coat, matches, a lighter, a satellite phone (just in case, Gerry had told the people in charge), a knife, and had kindly reloaded her gun.

Yanking on her boots and lacing them slowly, methodically - carefully - she listened as the wives kept bickering between one another, while the husbands did their best (their best was very poor, in the Israeli woman's opinion) to make sure their children got to sleep instead of interjecting in their mothers' bickering whenever possible. Her old clothes had been discarded as well, and she now wore clothes, clean of debris, sand, dirt, blood, and anything else that would prove to be unclean (really, it wasn't such a big deal to her; she was fine with what she'd had on her back when she had been helped onto the aircraft carrier).

She was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt over a black tank top. The material was thin, but it was tightly woven, and tough, so it wouldn't tear easily. It was also quite warm, which was nice, since the colder months were growing closer and closer. Her pants were similar to the ones she had left Jerusalem left, if not in the colors of the navy's camouflage. Her boots were like any other kind any military would give out to their soldiers. They were a bit worn, but new. Which was a nice change, but one that wasn't necessary.

She grabbed the grey jacket (one with no collar, and no hood, which dipped down to reveal the material of her shirt) and tugged it on, straightening it down her front while (finally) grabbing the black hat (the girl, Rachel, had called it a beanie, for some reason, which was an odd nickname for a ht) and, tugging it on her head and over her ears, she shook her head to rid herself of the oncoming headache that would soon follow her departure from the carrier, if they even let her off.

Standing up, avoiding hitting her head on the bunk above her, she exited the bunk room she'd been assigned to. The family hadn't even noticed her leaving, and she hoped Gerry wouldn't find her and stop her from leaving - she hoped no one would. She didn't need to be a liability here. She could take care of herself, even though she was now ill, now that her death was ensured, one way or another - but it hadn't quite sunk in yet. And she was grateful for that, she thought, as she made her way down the halls (she hoped she was going the right way), speaking to no one as the crowds in the hall became thicker and thicker, letting her know that she was getting closer to her destination.

Bursting into the room, which, of course, was alive with activity, with people on phones and talking to one another and receiving and giving orders, Segen spotted her backpack, and next to it, the heavy-knit coat, the one much like the one she was wearing, except it had a zipper (_and_ buttons, and was also insulated, thank goodness) and a high collar, to keep the chill off her neck. Her hat, she realized, would keep her ears from falling off in the coming months.

Hurrying over to her things, Segen quickly yanked on her coat, already feeling slightly overheated in the carrier, zipped it, secured it by buttoning it up to her chin, and slung the backpack (which, in reality, wasn't nearly as heavy as the pack she'd had to carry with her in Israel) over her shoulder, getting her (rather useless) arm through the left strap, getting comfortable with the weight while her eyes searched for the U.N Deputy Secretary-General in the crowd around her. Spotting him, she began to make her way towards him, with the idea in mind to ask him if she could be left on shore somewhere, alone, and for no one to worry about her or follow her or anything like that.

Segen just wanted to get out - she had convinced herself that she was ready to survive on her own, because in her mind, there was no such thing as safe zones.

That was because there was really no such thing as safe anymore. It pained her to know that she was one of the only people who seemed to think that, because if everyone thought they were _really_ safe, they were wrong.

Dead wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**Apologies for the grammatical/spelling/punctuation mistakes/errors in future and past chapters; when I'm on a roll I tend to write fast, and tend not to be thorough whilst looking for mistakes. Thanks for reading, now, without further adieu, here is the next chapter. But, a note for the present and future: I will do my best to make it realistic, but be warned: 1) that might not go as planned 2.5) nothing ever goes as planned with my stories, so prepare yourself, and, lastly: 3) _this is going to be a disaster_. 'Kay, I know I said 'w/out adieu' earlier, but I'll say it now (again) for the last time in this A/N.  
****Without further adieu (for real this time, I swear), here is chapter three.**

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Segen stood on the rocky shore, watching the helicopter grow smaller and smaller with a small frown, heading back towards the _USS Argus_, until it disappeared from sight, towards the rising sun. Recalling the past couple of hours, she grimaced, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She hadn't been on solid ground for more than a couple of minutes, and she was already growing tired—and it had _nothing_ to do with her sickness.

Thierry, of course, had (at first) refused to let the Israeli go anywhere—he had never really specified a real reason as to why she couldn't go off and away by herself, but eventually, she had convinced him to drop her off somewhere, as long as she got off the carrier _alone_ (she could take care of herself) and somewhere (again, preferably) uninhabited.

The man had probably had good intentions in trying to keep her on the carrier (Gerry _had_, after all, personally requested a bunk for her, and therefore, he had probably expected her to stay longer, even though she had made it clear that she would be leaving after a very short amount of time), but eventually a man—Captain Mullenaro, if she remembered correctly, which she was sure she did—had told her he would be _happy_ to have her off the carrier if A) she felt that she would be useful on her own and B) she was so willing to give up that bunk for someone else (though she could hardly see someone actually wanting _her_ bunk, considering the bunkmates the person would have to endure, but she supposed that wasn't her problem).

But, even that couldn't convince the Secretary-General completely—until she had voiced the fact that she would be _fine_ because she knew how to live on her own (in truth, she just knew how to _survive_; you couldn't truly _live_ the way she had chosen to) and she would be as careful as humanly possible. At the time, she wondered if Gerry had told them about what she'd had done to herself. Probably, she had thought, because the looks both men had given her told her that they disapproved of this as much as Gerry would have if he had been there.

Luckily, though, the United States' navy captain had managed to get a helicopter ready for her, and she had left with only one favor to ask of him: that he should tell Gerry thanks for saving her life and that she had gone off (prepared). After all, this had been the sole reason for her signing her own death warrant.

With her backpack slung over her shoulder, Segen turned away from the silence of the ocean and towards the wilderness in front of her. When she inhaled, the air was cold, sharp—like a knife. But it felt good in her lungs; it made her feel a little bit better about leaving the illusion of safety behind, it made it easier to push away the nagging doubts and worries she'd managed to keep hidden from everyone she'd come in contact with since this whole (_zombie!_) ordeal had begun.

Her decision, she thought, as she began to walk (slowly; she was in no hurry, with no real destination in mind—but her goal was to avoid any and all contact with humans, living and dead, and the larger cities, too), her boots crunching loudly in the silence that the helicopter had left her in, might have been a foolish one. She had appeared to be confident—she'd _had_ to, in order to be left alone, in order not become a burden to them—to Gerry, to his family, to _anyone_—and wasn't that the right thing—the noble thin—to do? Wasn't it better if someone able (with two hands) had her bunk, her place in the mess hall, her place on the ship? Wasn't it better if she, the useless of the bunch—_the one without a hand_—be out of the way? Wasn't it better if the one who had _chosen_ to stay by themselves _kept to their word_ and actually stayed by themselves? Wasn't it better? Wasn't it?

She hardly knew. She kept her eyes on her feet, and then ahead of her, watching where she stepped. Her ears were trained on the emptiness of the area around her—a rocky shore, with pebbles and sharp rocks serving as a substitute, a colored sky slowly filling with the rising sun (which, she hoped, would do something for the early-morning chill), sparse vegetation (at least for a little while longer), and ahead of her she could see the beginnings of thin and eventually thickening woodland. She'd never been to Canada before; she was use to the heat, to the scorching of the desert—she'd only ever been in Israel, in Jerusalem.

The Israeli woman stumbled a bit, regaining her balance quickly as a sudden pang of homesickness took over—the same pang she got when she had been sent into the capital of her country, but this—_this feeling_—was intensified tenfold. It made her, for a moment, feel like she was going to wretch. When her stomach heaved, when she could taste bile in the back of her throat, she sank to her knees, suddenly shaky, suddenly losing all the confidence she'd possessed, the confidence that she'd been borrowing from Gerry, from the W.H.O doctors.

And this time, she really was sick.

Segen knew she probably should have stayed on the carrier. She probably could have been to _some_ use; she was, after all, still a soldier—but she couldn't see what good a handicapped one (a missing hand was a major handicap) would do. Her illness (she knew she'd been stupid, _so stupid_) would have passed an excuse to keep her aboard, to make sure someone made use of her onboard the ship, where she could live out her life in _peace_, until the symptoms began to show, until she lost her mind and body to the genetics she'd had herself injected with in the hopes that she would be able to survive—_on her own_—in _Canada_, of all places. Not far from where Gerry was going to go with his family, not far at all from the "safe zone"(but she was on the main continent, and not the small island they had been dumped on when Gerry had been presumed dead)—and that made her wiper her mouth, and spit out the remnants of the ailment of homesickness into the weeds sticking out of the rocky ground of the shore (she _would not _call it sand; sand was what made the desert familiar, what made it home, and _this wasn't home_; therefore, this would not be called sand, not by her mouth, not in her mind).

However, the soldier did not get up and to her feet right away. The weight of her choices, the weight of her feelings—those _troublesome, cumbersome, sickening_ feelings—were finally crashing down on her, and she only needed a moment—just a moment, to get her bearings, to get her head on straight, to push these accursed things—these _emotions_ that would soon have her a crumbling mess if she didn't quickly rebuild her composure, her confidence, no matter how little of it she really had.

Gulping in large amounts of clear, clean, cold air, Segen allowed herself a moment—just a moment—to remember her home, her village, the dead bodies she'd left behind in favor of joining her country's military, opting to be of some use to someone instead of staying where she had grown up with the dead—the dead had been the only ones left, and, remembering that, she allowed herself to feel the guilt (but for only this moment)—and she allowed herself to feel regret, to feel hopelessness, to feel _stupid, so stupid_—to feel a variety of things she hadn't allowed herself to feel for—well, quite some time.

Now that the emotions were out and all over the place, weighing on her chest, running through her veins—constantly reminding her of her choices and mistakes and fears and the failures she'd been trying to push to the back of her mind in order to survive with a clear head—she struggled to get herself back under control.

It took a few long, silent moments, but eventually, the feelings subsided, but they would be back. She knew they would be—they always came back, but this was the first time _in years_ that she had allowed herself that moment, that small, necessary moment, to be a human being once again with ability to _feel_, to think, to _breathe_—and that reminded her that she was of _some use_, if only to herself. She was still human. She wasn't one of those shells (she couldn't call them zombies, though; they _had _been someone before, just like she was now, someone who'd lived, but had died inside, and now were being controlled by the disease that made their minds—their _individuality_—dissipate in seconds) wandering around, trying to infect every healthy person they could. She was fearful that they still might attack her—they might, they just might, because Gerry just might have been _lucky_ for all she knew—and she could probably still get infected, even with the disease running through her body, slowly settling in, waiting for its time to pounce and corrode her body till there was nothing left to show the world that she was _human_.

Segen _immediately_ stopped thinking about that. She could dwell on that later—for now, though, she needed to get moving, she needed to make some progress. After all, she couldn't—_would not_—sleep in the woodland if she could help it. One of those _things_ (zombies) might happen upon her sleeping form, and decide that her sickly body (even though she felt find, for the most part) was worthy of being infected with its own disease. Or, worse—another human, (or group of humans) might come across her, and she knew that, in the apocalyptic state that the world was in, there was, truthfully, no one she could fully trust. They might pretend to help her, to take her in—and rob her. They might do _worse_ than take her supplies and leave her for dead—it had been the same before everyone had been secured inside the capital of Israel.

One of the soldiers in the helicopter had advised her to find something on wheels—like a bike, or something of the like—something quiet yet quick to travel on, so she would not attract attention to herself. He had also advised her that 1) when she ran out of water from the water bottles she had been so graciously given before her departure, she would find a container to fill water up in and boil to kill any germs and bacteria, 2) that she eat none of the plants; there was no telling what and what wasn't poisonous, and 3) she should avoid large towns and cities as much as possible. She needed to go to rest stops and gas stations if she needed anything, and she needed to keep away from long lines of traffic jams, in case there were people (living) lying in wait, ready to jump someone (that sort of thing had already happened, apparently, and she wasn't surprised) or crowds of zombies (_there_, she had called them that—but it still felt _wrong_).

Segen realized, as she slowly got to her feet, steadying herself before she continued to put one foot in front of the other, that she didn't really have a plan, other than to survive. But, she decided, as her boots stopped crunching on the rocks (how could _anyone_ call this a beach?) and were not padding softly on the grass and choked weeds and branches underfoot, as the woodland grew closer, she would need to find someplace to sleep for the night, because she was _not_ about to sleep in a tree or on the ground.

She didn't have a map, but she figured that any direction (aside from the one behind her, which went towards the sea) was good, so she continued to go straight, straightening her back and quickening her pace to a reasonable stride.

Segen could only hope that she was the only person (living—but dead was fine too, if she were truly alone, even if she _was_ camouflaged) for miles around as she neared the trees, the naked branches reaching out for her, as if daring her to step within their ranks and find her way.

This was going to be difficult—surviving. But it had been her choice.

It was her _only_ choice.


	4. Chapter 4

**The 'T' rating of this fic _will _go up, but not anytime soon, methinks - for violence and language and such.**

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By the time she had found a road that looked like it had been a once-popular highway, the sun had already disappeared high into the sky and behind a massive wall of dark, ominous clouds that looked awfully similar to those that she'd seen carry thunder (and on rare occasion, rain, because last night it had rained, and it felt amazing on her skin, after spending her entire childhood in the desert).

From where she stood, her body hidden in the safety of the silence of the trees, from (and the trees beyond it) the long stretch of pavement, she could see that it appeared to be desolate now—lonely and unused, as if it had been that way for ages (though it hadn't been more than just a few days since Canada had seen its first case of—of its citizens being—uh, _zombified_; it shouldn't have bothered her that much, that term, that implication—but it did, in the worst of ways). There was no sign of life that she could see or hear or even _smell_ in the air—aside from the swaying of tree branches behind her and just beyond the road—and for that, she was somewhat relieved. She wasn't quite ready to go through a crowd of the infected (_zombies_—really! Why was it so difficult to say it, let alone think it?) _or_ to encounter anyone, who was _actually_ _alive_.

_Those_ things weren't on the top of her to-do list. First off, she wanted to find something with wheels. A bike, like what had been advised of her to find—or _something_ that would get her around faster (though she still had no destination in mind; she knew that she just needed to get a move on before something—or some_thing_—found her. Her backpack wasn't too heavy, but by now she could feel the strain deep within her shoulder blades. It was nothing she couldn't handle, but at the same time, she knew she would eventually need a break—_eventually_.

But she had a ways to go before she could consider taking a break, because she hadn't found _anything_ worth stopping for; in the woodland, while she had been trying to spot dead branches and twisted roots underneath dead leaves and other natural debris, she had run into a few mossy, poorly-put-together shacks that looked to have been built decades ago, back before anyone knew to use something _other_ than rotting, dampened wood from the damp, tough trees that made up the woodland she had been trekking through since the sun had climbed its way above the horizon and into the sky.

She had searched the remains of the shacks, but had found nothing but mold, more moss, broken chips of—of metal, _maybe_, because it looked a lot like shrapnel, but she couldn't name it (maybe it had come from a destroyed utensil of some sort)—so she had kept moving, as quietly and as quickly as she possibly could, but that had amounted to more stumbling through the dense, somewhat-dead foliage and over hidden rocks that were jutting out of the ground, only when they had been revealed by her tripping and stepping over them. But she had yet to fall flat on her face and earn herself a bloody nose, so that had to count for something.

Segen hadn't encountered any signs of civilization—from before or after the outbreak, besides those crumbling, ancient buildings (she'd seen better imitations of homes outside of Jerusalem; the ones in small, isolated villages, from the middle of the desert—the ones that somehow lasted throughout the years and didn't end up unused and forgotten, like the ones she had looked through had) and though she wasn't quite hungry or thirsty yet (although she was a bit chilly), it was probably best that she find more food before she start eating what she had in her pack.

Segen climbed up the steep, small slope that led from the abrupt start of the trees and on the edge of the road, a slight, crisp breeze greeting her as she stood up straight, once again hoisting her pack up her shoulders, but it just sank down with its weight again.

She _really_ wanted a bike—_anything_ would do the trick.

Turning her head to the left, and then to the right, she realized that both ways ran straight and looked the same. The stretch of highway that she'd found was empty, barren, and lonely; it went straight, and what she couldn't see disappeared into the forests around her. She wondered if it would lead her anywhere, or if making a decision about which way she should go in the first place was even worth the energy and effort. Neither direction looked promising; she was sure that neither would leave to a safe haven—sticky and unwanted situations awaited her, but _maybe_ at different lengths. One might bring her trouble faster than the other would—but the question was _which one _would delay the trouble she was trying to avoid the longest.

_Which one?_

Segen sighed. She was going to have to eat soon, if not in the next few minutes. But stopping out here wasn't an option, because she had no idea what else, or _who_ else, was lurking about in the woodland and on the road with her. There was no telling what—or who—she might come across of bump into. She wanted as little human contact as she could possibly get.

Briefly, she wondered if it would be a good idea to just cross the road and continue through the untamed and (for the most part) untouched wilderness. But, in all honesty, she was getting quite sick of all the greens and the browns and the dead foliage that littered the ground everywhere she went. Already she missed the desert, her old home, Jerusalem, the familiar sands and the sounds of her people—because here—_here_, there was nothing, and that was best, but she couldn't help but feel _lonely_. Very, very lonely.

It wasn't that she was unused to feeling that way—it was just that she _disliked _feeling like she did now. The near-intact silence wasn't too heavy for her to deal with, but she wasn't used to it, not like how it was now—and she knew that if she found a town, or a city, or even _one house_, she might encounter one of those _things _(zombies) and then it wouldn't be so quiet. It would make those horrific, pitiful noises as she would try to skirt past it (or _them_; there was _never_ just one) without bothering it too much. After all, her not-so-yet-still-genetic disease wasn't supposed to kick in for… well, a long while. The W.H.O doctors had predicted when she might start showing symptoms, but they might not even show up till she was much, much older (she didn't think she'd survive that long anyway—having one hand wasn't really useful in a world such as this) and she still didn't know if Gerry had only gotten _extremely _lucky or if her disease was actually supposed to repel those walking corpses.

Segen had been doubtful from the moment they'd injected her with it, but it had been her only way of preserving some hope that she might be able to survive on her own without being a hindrance to anyone else—and that included was left of the living (along with Gerry and those aboard the _USS Argus_). She was more likely to be killed if she proved to be a hindrance to those who could not afford to deal with useless things like her.

Closing her eyes briefly, while shoving down the first, fleeting little feelings of panic that had begun to swell within her body—_because she had no clue as to where she should or shouldn't be going_—and stomping on them, almost literally, she decide that she might as well go right, because there was no way she could know _exactly_ what lay ahead of her (or on either side; she didn't really _want_ to _know_ what was waiting for her in the trees that seemed a lot darker and a lot more mysterious than she remembered, but then again, that could have been because of the lack of sunlight, and she was used to the scorching of the sun on her skin, even in months were it was supposed to be cold in places like these)—so, without hesitation, she turned and took about three steps in the direction she had chosen when she halted, a realization crashing down on her—one that she was lucky to have remembered at that particular moment.

It was probably best to simply _follow_ the road, rather than be _travel_ _on it_. In case she saw someone (or something) come along before she heard them (motorized means of transportations were, no matter what, loud in a silence like this, and if she were walking in the middle of the road, she wouldn't be able to get to cover without being seen first.

But, if she kept _close_ to the road, if she stayed _out of sight_, and her ears open and took in every sound around her—yet she kept _her_ eyes on the road, then she might be able to find something before something—or some_one_—found her.

Segen quickly glanced around, to make sure that her sudden realization was safe to act on—because if she ducked into cover now and someone had seen her, then there really was no point in it—her eyes scouring the terrain, but seeing no irregular movement (that appeared humanoid in the slightest) and hearing no motors or engines or _anything _of the like that indicated that she was not, in fact, alone, she quickly ran down the small slope of gravel, her footfalls becoming soft as her boots met the high, choking weeds that would provide good cover for her in case she had to drop to her belly (in case someone or something _did _come along), and she began walking, just behind the tree line. Her vision was not obscured; she heard nothing coming from the trees on her right, and there were no sounds to her left, but that didn't keep her from glancing frequently, in dysfunctional, rapid patterns from the trees, to her feet and what was in front of her, and to the road, over and over again, in different combinations as the seconds spent going through the foliage—thank goodness her attire wasn't bright enough to be seen through the trees, unless there was a hunter nearby who _knew_ to look for abnormalities in the wild (she doubted she would come across anyone like _that_ but it was still a possibility—and soon, before she knew it, the air was filled with fresh scent of rain, and the sky was completely filled with dark clouds that seemed to be promising her a storm.

Segen sighed, took off her hat (beanie), and shoved it in her coat pocket as she crept on, while her eyes kept going from the woods, to what was in front of her (and at her feet), and the road, never once stopping, and occasionally, she would throw a near-paranoid glance over her shoulder, but she saw and heard nothing as the distant rumbling of thunder sent small vibrations through the ground.

Soon, the seconds that dragged by turned into minutes, and those—ever so slowly—turned to hours. Her stomach was grumbling, her head was beginning to ache (she tended to get headaches when she didn't sleep well), and she was beginning to grow tired by the time she actually found a place that seemed like it was worth going through, though it looked completely abandoned—it looked emptier than some of the neighboring villages nearest her own, before she'd left it because she had been _the only one left_, and _those_, if Americans had seen and step foot in them, would have been called ghost towns—but she wasn't even sure if ghosts stayed behind to haunt the graves of so, so many. _That_ was how empty this place seemed, and she hadn't set foot in it yet.

Segen halted at the sign that she found, by the highway, and not far from that, she could see a few buildings, with faded red bricks and peeling paint. The doors sagged on their hinges, creaking in the breeze, and the shutters on the windows looked as if they would come detached from their respective places at any given moment. Broken glass littered the pavement, mostly around buildings making the tiny main square of the town she'd come across. Some windows and doorways looked to have been boarded up at one time; random pieces of cleanly cut wood hung from doornails, which were attached to some door and window panes, by hurriedly-hammered-in nails. The weeds around the open doors of the silent place seemed to be choking the structures, making it look like no one had lived here in decades. And, if what had happened _hadn't _happened, she could have been convinced that no one _had_ live her in a long, long while.

After a few seconds of evaluating what she could (and couldn't) see, she decided it was a place to stop. But, she didn't get out of the weeds, and she didn't take another step forward.

The old, wooden sign read, in faded white letters:

**Welcome To the Town of Kingtan**

**Population: 103  
Founded: 1987**

It wasn't what the sign read, however, that kept Segen from going any further without her eyes narrowing and her body tensing. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and her hand clamped into an able fist as she clenched her teeth and slowly slid the backpack off of her shoulders and onto the ground, her ears now solely focused on the tiny town not even twenty steps away, crouching she could easily access the contents of her the bag. She made sure the gun was in her back pocket, while she fished the knife out, hooking its sheath to one of her belt loops while holding the blade between her teeth as she carefully and slowly zipped up the bag. Straightening up as much as she dared, she took the knife out of her mouth, readying it in her hand, the familiar weight of the gun in her back pocket making her feel just a little bit better about what she was about to do.

What stopped her from going any further wasn't the sight of the little town, or the lack of life, or the silence that seemed worse than the one she'd been dealing with out in the wilderness—no, what stopped her from going forward was the blood splattered on the sign, and the drops near her side of the road that seemed to lead across to the side of the road opposite hers, disappearing down the steep, short slope that would take whoever had bled out into the trees, and out of sight.


	5. Chapter 5

The Israeli soldier knew it was going to rain even before she felt the first drop creep down the leaves above her head and onto the top of her head. It started as a light drizzle—she knew it might turn into a downpour, and while she would stay dry for the most part (she was actually hoping it would snow; she wouldn't be completely soaked if it did, but she knew she might have to wait anywhere from a couple of days to a few weeks. Then again, if she did find something with wheels, then that would be hazardous for her.

Her knife was in her right hand, but just as she was about take the first, cautious step forward, out of cover and into the open, where anyone could see her, an idea came to her. Looking to her right, towards the trees, she quickly stuck her knife back in between her teeth as she crouched down and quickly located a pine cone. Crouching down till one knee sunk into the dampened, leaf-covered earth, she quickly pulled her hand behind her head and threw the pine cone as hard as she could. She watched as it sailed through the air. It landed quite a ways away from where she was, by the blood-spattered sign (it was days old, she knew—it had dried completely)—it landed in the middle of the road.

Holding her breath, Segen waited for a response. Her eyes roamed her surroundings—she didn't forget to look behind her or to her sides—but her main focus was on the buildings (the doors on all of them hung open, and silence seemed to be pouring out of them, a desolate and lonely and empty and _dead_ silence that she would trade for the one she'd used to tell herself she was safe for the last few hours—since she had found the highway.

Seconds ticked by, but there was nothing—there was, literally _no_ sound or movement in the small town—Kingtan, was it?—and it disturbed her more than seeing one of those _things_ (_zombies_, for goodness sake—it shouldn't have been that hard to _think_ of them as that) meander out and see what the hell had caused the noise. Or maybe, she would have been even _more_ disturbed than _that_ if an actual and _living human being _actually stepped out to investigate.

As she watched, and waited, and watched and watched and watched, she thought to what Gerry had had planned for what was left of the world. He probably had already revealed his plan to Thierry and his other superiors—and if he hadn't, he would have already because there was no way he'd waste any more time than one night to tell everyone what he and the W.H.O doctors had come up with—about spreading curable, temporary pathogens to create a camouflage for the humans to use against those disgusting, sad _things_ (zombies).

It made her think of her choice, of what _she_'d had done to herself, of the fate she'd sealed herself, of the fact that she would die sooner than she would live to see this whole thing (_zombie apocalypse_), of the symptoms that could come about _any damn day_, of the _foolish_, stubborn decision she'd made in order to stop herself from becoming a hindrance to those who could not afford to have any on their aircraft carrier or even in their military ranks, of the illusion of _safety_ that she could have chosen to adopt and could have pretended to believe—

_Immediately_, she erased that _all of those things _from her mind (well, as best she could, anyway), and quickly glanced around her. Seeing nothing—_not one thing, living or dead_—she turned her attention back to the pine cone.

She still had to be sure.

Looking around her feet, she looked for something that was heavier than a pine cone, something that would create a bit more noise—and her eyes found exactly what she was looking for, a few centimeters away from her boot. She leaned and snatched a rusty, old can that she normally wouldn't had even bothered with, but the lid was still attached, and there were rocks embedded in the earth underneath the dead leaves under her feet.

_This_ could do the trick—it could draw something out, but it might not. It could be for nothing, but the soldier didn't care. She didn't care at all if anything popped out at her. There was no way she was going to make a mistake, here, coming across to her first supposedly-abandoned town.

She managed to get a few pebbles and bits of gravel loose from the soil, and she carefully—and as quietly as she could, while glancing over her shoulders and to the sides, just to make sure nothing and no one was going to sneak up on her (because she really wasn't in the mood to deal with something or someone sneaking up on her—and she was more worried about some_one_ sneaking up on her, since she supposedly was camouflaged to the zombies lurking about, though she had yet to even _see_ one)—slid them into the can. She didn't have a rubber band or any kind of string to tie the lid of the can shut, but she supposed that merely pushing the lid into its container would do the trick, but not too deep, or else the noise she wanted to create would not be enough to draw anything (or any_one_) out into the open, where she could see them (or _it_) and assess the situation at hand (that is, if there was even a situation to evaluate in the first place).

Making sure the lid was in place, and moving it as little as possible, Segen readied her right hand, the rocks sliding to the back of the dirty can as she did so, and drew her arm back. Focusing her remaining energy (she _probably_ should have eaten hours ago—and by now her lapse in good judgment was noticeable—but creeping through the weeds without being detected by anything _had_ been her main priority) in her arm, she took a deep breath, and flung the noisy object she'd created as hard and as far as she possibly could have.

It landed a ways away from the pine cone. The impact that it made with the ground was noisy and had its desired effect; the noise was a loud clang, and as it rolled to a stop, near the open door to what she assumed had once been a convenience store, and she let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Again, but more carefully this time, her eyes went to the trees to her right, searching for any movement. She saw none. She twisted her body around, to see if anything or anyone was coming up behind her, but there was _nothing_. Lastly, she turned her eyes to the road, twisting her torso so it was now facing forwards once again, and, letting a sigh of relief escape her, she realized that there was little need to be as cautious as she was being—because, she had been right to assume the first time, that she was truly alone, in the middle of nowhere.

But she couldn't tell if that was an accepted comfort, or an internal crisis. Maybe, it was both, and maybe, it was neither.

Whatever it was to her, it was hollow, and colder than the breeze that sifted gently through the branches, scattering dead leaves across the highway and pavement that ran through the middle of Kingtan—and the rain that was now falling onto her tensed form.

With her knife still in her teeth, the Israeli woman continued to wait, just on the safe side, just to see—just to _see_ if anything bad popped out of any openings.

Minutes ticked by, slowly (that might or might not have turned into ten minutes or more), until she finally made the decision to go on into the abandoned town—that might have seemed peaceful, once upon a time—and see what she could find.

Straightening up, the soldier made sure she didn't let her guard down as she starting putting one foot in front of the other, slowly, carefully—as quietly she possibly could, which wasn't difficult, but she _could not afford _to take any chances when it came to preserving what she had and the fact that she had gone unseen (as far as she knew) since she had been left on that hideous excuse of a beach (rocks padded into gravelly sand shouldn't have counted as a _beach_). Taking her knife out of her mouth and readying it—_just in case_—in her hand, with her other arm (wrist?) against her side. If someone had been watching her, she would have felt ridiculous, at the rate and with the way she was slowly moving toward the town square.

But, the way she saw it was that she _had no other choice_—she had to be careful. It was either that, or death—and, in all honesty, the Israeli did not see her impending death as another option. It was fate. Fate, she knew, _was not _an option; it was just something _that was there_.


	6. Chapter 6

When she emerged from the foliage, she felt an overwhelming sense to duck back into cover—away from any possibilities of prying eyes that might or might not want to do her any harm, because if anything popped out at her, it _would_ mean to do her harm. There had been nothing when she had thrown the objects that she had in order to see if anything would respond to the sound. Any zombie lurking in the remains of the crumbling town—or nearby—would have heard and come stumbling as fast as possible to see what had woken them from their (hopefully) dormant state. If there had been anything (mostly dead on its feet), it would already be here. And she was the only one for miles around, most likely.

It was a haunting thought.

But that didn't mean she was completely safe, and she knew it—because there was _no such thing_ as safe, despite what everyone else on the planet (including those who had seen it; her own people had known this, and somehow, their illusion of safety had lasted till they had begun to sing in Jerusalem—and then, like she had been afraid of had happened: it had _shattered_) had seen in their lives and pasts, and would see in the future.

It _was_ sad, though. It was _sad_, to know that she was one of the few who _knew_ there was no escaping anything forever. It was strange, to be one of the few who believed that nowhere, nobody, and nothing was a safe refuge. It was surreal, at times, but now, it just felt like she'd known something all along that the rest of the world should have known, too.

Segen didn't let down her guard, even if the place she'd found _was_ truly empty, aside from her own, dying self. Her eyes assessed her surroundings, and she carefully increased her pace's speed, creeping up to where she'd thrown the pine cone and halting, spinning in a full circle, her boots barely making a sound on the pavement and she _looked and looked and looked _till she stopped moving. She was now facing the convenience store. Her form was tense, the knife was ready to be plunged into anything that dared to even _move_—and, despite how still she was, her heart was thumping loudly—insistently—and that was the only sign that, on the inside, she was not calm and collective and fine with her situation. She was _shrieking_ on the inside, and the only thing she could do now was to stay silent, pretend that she was fine, though she didn't know why she even bothered, because there was no one around that she had to fool—no one at all.

Back home, she remembered distantly, as she began creeping towards the entrance a bit more quickly than she had crept into town, it had been necessary to keep calm. It had been necessary to _pretend_ that you were keeping calm. It had never been her job to be one of the panicking masses of the civilians that suffered from different situations, different things—and she remembered that it had been like this long before any outbreak of that horrible _disease. _It had been her _place_ to be the one to keep calm, to make sure panicking and confused civilians in Israel didn't develop into mobs (mobs were hard to deal with, especially angry ones—even when they hadn't been turned into shells of their former selves)—and now? Now, she wasn't even sure she had a place. In fact, she was sure that she didn't; she was probably as useful—and probably held the same place—as a ghost, a ghost with no place to haunt.

Creeping up to the door frame, the soldier's eyes quickly examined what the convenience store had to offer, and wasn't all that disappointed when she saw that the shelves were _literally _empty. There was garbage, papers—useless things that were strewn about on the dirty, tiled floor. She wasn't surprised, though. People panicked—that's what people did, wasn't it? And it had been her job—back home, back in the familiar, scorching heat that she was so much more used to than the weather this far from Israel—it had been _her job _to make sure everyone moved in a timely and orderly fashion into safer (but not the kind of safe that appeared to be permanent; she had never seen anyone in her country promised that, not until a while ago, back when Israel had built the wall around the only, had-been safe place in the country) locations.

But, she figured that there had been no authority here. People had taken what they had needed—wanted, fought over, fought for—and had left, leaving filth and litter and unnecessary things on the floor, things that wouldn't do anyone any good.

There was more blood in here, she realized, on the floor, here and there; there were smeared, red handprints on some surfaces, while tiny puddles had collected in the small dents of the tied floor, and, for a moment, she wondered if what she had thrown hadn't been enough—but she had created such a _loud_ sound. It had been so loud that she still felt the urge to clench her teeth and hold her breath at the clanging, rattling sound the can and bits of pebbles within it had made (honestly; everything seemed magnified in the silence—_everything _did). If any zombie were actually here, it would have ran out to bite whatever had made the noise by now. But it was silent, eerily so, and she suddenly felt the need to just forget about this place and move on to the next, but it occurred to her that this might be the only place that was _actually empty_. There was no way in hell that she would be going towards any of the bigger cities (she was not going to take any chances; nothing could change her mind about _that_) or the larger towns that dotted Canada as they did Israel, and probably the United States as well, though she'd never been—but some countries were alike, in one way or another.

Despite the erratic, uneven pounding of her heart, and the gut instinct to get the hell out of the vicinity, she began to creep down one of the isles. She had enough food to last her a while, if she chose to eat wisely; twice a day, in the morning, and in the evening, like she always did. She hadn't eaten yet, and to eat now, in the afternoon, with the rain coming down, and the thunder rumbling over head like some great, ferocious entity was an unappealing thought, though getting a few minutes of sleep didn't sound too bad.

She did, however, need at least two or three more bottles of water, to last her until she found the next gas station, preferably in the middle of nowhere. She needed a few other things as well, things that the gracious people aboard the _USS Argus _had not thought to give her (a cloth for washing, gloves, perhaps mouthwash, and some other seemingly useless—yet human—items).

The knife was still in her hand as her eyes quickly perused the places on the shelves that were not devoid of anything, but toys, and brushes, and small little trinkets that held no use to her were the only things that greeted her stony expression.

But then she spotted it—a small, silver flashlight, still in a package, hidden in the nook at the end of the shelf. She hurried over to it, used the knife to open it as quickly, as carefully, and as quietly as she could (like she'd agreed on with herself earlier: she was taking _no _chances). When she was done, she stuffed the silver, cylinder-shaped object into her pocket after pushing the button on the butt of the mechanism and had, for a second, watched it light up. A flashlight wouldn't hurt anyone, especially if she was going into a dark place, with no telling what was waiting for her.

Segen rounded the corner, and spotted the refrigerated section, and with a short, hollow burst of emotion emanating from somewhere deep within her, she rushed over to the doors, her eyes flying to few water bottles in the back of the shelves that hadn't been snatched by frantic, bloodstained hands. There were four, to her relief, as she quickly dropped her backpack to the floor, her eyes searching her surroundings—_just in case_—and, finding nothing, she opened the door to the cold-and-even-colder shelves, and stuck the remaining bottles into her backpack, first making sure that none of them had been opened (for fear of any type of contamination, of _any_ kind) or that they were leaking (because she did not want her necessities soaked when it was _already_ pouring down icy sheets of rain outside) before zipping her bag shut. Hoisting it over her left shoulder, with as much difficulty as expected, seeing as how she only had one hand, she straightened up, and turned, to look at the few other isles that were in the store. Though she was slightly chilled, she realized that it probably wouldn't be the best idea to venture outside once she'd found everything that the store had had to offer her. Catching a cold, while her immune system might already be affected, probably _wasn't _the best idea in the world, and, unless it stopped or lightened up to a bearable drizzle, then she was probably going to be stuck in this place longer than she thought was necessary (she had only planned to be here for only about twenty minutes, maybe less, due to its size and the fact that it probably had little to nothing to offer her).

She went down another aisle, and was thankful to see that some deity (that might or might exist) had left her one large, narrow bottle of peppermint mouthwash—one that could fit in one of the many crisscrossing pockets on her pack easily. She knew that death was not an excuse to completely neglect her health, and she didn't have the luxury of brushing her teeth twice a day like she might have before all of this (she needed to keep moving, sleep in short, frequent doses as soon as she _really_ got moving and found herself a set of wheels, and, though hygiene wasn't the most important thing in the world, she needed to keep some part of her clean; showering was going to be something of an issue, in the coming future). Next, she located not one, but three washcloths—and a bar of soap—she could use (if she happened upon a secluded spot near a stream or something of the sort).

Her luck, for the most part, in the store, ended there. She'd managed to find a pair of thick, black gloves, which she was wearing now (her fingers were already warm from the insulation, much like the rest of her upper body, thanks to her coat). But, that was all, and the other items she'd thought might be useful someday soon were not in the store, and she doubted that they would be anywhere else in this town.

Scouring the rest of the store, and even the back room (she _hated_ back rooms with a passion, because there was _always_ something hiding in the dark, _always, always, always_, but this time, there had been nothing—literally, _nothing_), had proved fruitless, but, by the time she had finished and arrived at the front entrance, with her eyes searching the drenched outdoors for any other places she could search for anything that might prove useful, she cared little for her lack of findings.

Her eyes found a car garage across the way. The garage door was open, and she suddenly ached to get out of the dimly lit store and to dash to the other side—too see if there was anything _there_ she could use.

She doubted it, though. Truthfully, she just didn't want to stay in this place any longer than she already had. Anyone could pass through here. Anyone—well, if they were _armed, _or physically stronger than her—could come, take her things, and leave her for dead (or worse: leave her in the worst mental and physical state imaginable, because death had to have begun looking like the easy way out to the ruthless, the cruel, and the desperate).

Heaving out a sigh between barely-parted lips, which sounded loud in the renewed silence that the rain seemed to cast over the abandoned buildings, Segen threw back her head, and, for what felt like the first time in a very long while, she yawned, stretched her arms over her head, her knife still clenched in the only hand she had left. She glanced to her left, and sighed at the debris being swept about on the floor by the cool, damp breeze that came in through the front entrance of the shop. Glancing to her right, she took a long, hard look at the cashier's counter, and then something hit her, a small, but relevant realization.

She had forgotten to check around, and behind, the cashier's station.

_How stupid._

Quietly, while getting the right strap over its rightful shoulder, she walked over to the counter, and looked around it. There were some scattered boxes of menthol cigarettes, there were some postcards, there were a few bracelets woven out of cheap yarn and a few worthless charms that served as pointless gifts from visiting this place along a journey, but she decided that pocketing the cigarettes she'd found couldn't be the worst thing she'd ever done—and while she did just that (there were six little boxes, and they all fit nicely in the side pockets that she could reach with her right hand while her knife was clenched between her teeth) her eyes went over her shoulders and out the front entrance (there was a back one, too, one that had been barricaded by an empty ice cream freezer, somehow) and out the front windows and into the street, where the rain continued to fall in heavy sheets—and, like before, there was nothing and no one else around but her.

She was not, by any means, a smoker. She'd only smoked a handful of times (you could count off the times she'd ever put anything in her system that hadn't been for an illness on one hand) but she figured that they might not be as useless as they appeared. While she might not use them, if she ran into someone who needed to trade something in order to let her by, she might have them to give.

Maybe—but she doubted it strongly.

Honestly, that just sounded like an excuse to bring something along with her that she really didn't, but she couldn't bring herself to _care_ that she was pretty much making up excuses concerning what she should and shouldn't take with her. Cigarettes were a health hazard and were unnecessary, but, she didn't care. She honestly _did not care_. And, besides, it wasn't like they took up that much room anyway.

Not really.

Not enough to worry her, anyhow.

The Israeli idly thought about all the blood around the store as she leaned over the counter to see if there was anything of use (there was so much blood, but the stench of rotting corpses, disease, and death—the smells that usually came with any sort of plague—were absent, and the lack of bodies alarmed her, and the absence of said bodies in the town, or as much as she dared to see, anyways, disturbed her even more), expecting nothing, but, for some reason, her last stroke of luck within the unnamed convenience store hit her just then:

Leaning up against the counter, hidden from view from any customer that might be looking around the register for money or food or other supplies, was a shiny, black and gray bike. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she examined it carefully, quickly coming around the corner of the counter and expecting it with calculating, hard eyes.

It seemed a tad bigger than what would fit her—a tad taller (it would be difficult getting off of it, but then again, she wasn't one to complain much when something good came her way, because not much good ever _did_ come her way) than she was—but it would suit her well. The colors were bright in their own way, but not blatantly obvious; you couldn't easily spot it if she were riding through or behind trees, and that alone was a thought that comforted her.

Taking the center of the handlebars with her hand, with her knife in her teeth, with a stump that had once been her left hand (well, it was actually the crook of her elbow) somehow loosely grasping the metal underneath the seat of the bicycle, she managed to haul it away (with surprising ease, despite the fact that its seat was level with her stomach) from the counter, and she carefully wheeled it around the counter and leant it up against the glass, next to the front door.

The soldier decided that she would probably have to wait for the rain to lessen its tirade against the beaten and trampled earth, and with that, she—if not reluctantly—slid the backpack off her shoulders and onto the ground. She sank down to her knees with it, quietly—_just in case_—with her knife still in between her teeth, and felt the tension leak out of her shoulder blades, bit by bit, as she allowed herself to lean her back against the cold metal of the cashier's counter. Her hands flew to the main zipper. Suddenly reminded of the fact that she hadn't eaten all day, not since last night (she'd gone longer, but if she was going to survive for as long as she could, she'd have to keep up something that served as an excuse of strength) by her grumbling stomach, which seemed abnormally loud in the heavy, damp silence, her hands found a water bottle—one that she'd just taken from the store—and a protein bar, from the _USS Argus_. She had quite a few of those in her backpack. In fact, she was sure that most of her food consisted of protein bars, and not much else—and the fluids she had were all water, she was sure of it.

Curious to see if she was right (there was no doubting that she _was_), she dug into her back, sifting around till she found a water bottle that _wasn't _filled with water. The liquid was blue, but it wasn't very familiar to her. She took the bottle out of her bag (it was still cold), and examined it. There was a hand-written label that must have been taped on, by the looks of it, in a rush. She allowed her eyes to widen and a tiny smile to spread across her lips, but it only lasted a few seconds.

The smudged, childlike, messy scrawl on the dirty white label read:

**_Segen: Drink wisely. It's an energy drink—Gatorade, if you're wondering._**

She had an idea of who it was from; the small, Hispanic child—she hardly even remembered his name, but she supposed she should have—had had a bottle of this kind of liquid when he had been at supper, onboard the aircraft carrier. She'd never had this drink before, though she'd seen it in vending machines in the newer buildings in the larger cities of Israel. Uncapping it carefully, so she wouldn't spill it, she brought the drink to her lips and was surprised by the sugary, pleasant, although foreign, taste of the liquid as it ran over her tongue and down her throat.

She unwrapped the protein bar, slowly, carefully—because she couldn't let anything go to waste, not even the menthols she'd taken, not even the seemingly-useless things she'd taken—and took a bite out of it. Soon, she knew, she would grow sick of its taste—its oddly foreign taste that was like nothing artificial she'd ever had before—but for now, she ate it, without any complaint, because the taste was new to her, and it was edible—she might have even called it _good_—but when at least half was left, she wrapped it back up, and she capped off the blue drink. She had drank little of it (a few sips at the most), wanting to preserve it, and instead had finished a bit less than half of the cold bottle of water she had first pulled out from the backpack.

Making sure that nothing would spill, she put everything back where it belonged—safe, in her backpack, and allowed herself to relax, just a little. Her eyes wandered over to the front entrance of the convenience store. Her eyes would occasionally wander back to the dimly lit shelves and isles around her, the faint buzzing of the refrigerator section becoming a welcome noise in her ears, but mostly, she kept her eyes trained on the can, outside. It hadn't moved since it had stopped rolling, and she found that it was easy to keep herself awake, though she knew that sleep would be needed (preferably during the day; at night, there were too many opportunities for something to go horribly wrong, since there was less visibility out in the Canadian wilderness.

A few, long seconds before the icy rain showed any signs of lessening its assault on the earth, the young woman decided to open up her bag—if not for a moment—and dig out the satellite phone, so she could inspect it—see how much battery power it had, and whose number it had programmed within its bulky form.

She pressed the **_on _**button, and watched as a single contact made itself known with a soft beep on the screen. The name, of course, had been predictable, but she was still a bit surprised as it flashed across the screen in black, capital letters:

**GERRY**

Shaking her head, she turned it back off, to preserve battery, and stuffed it back in her pack, securing it once and for all. Of _course _the only number in there would be his—why was she even remotely surprised? Well, she wasn't, not really—but still. She hadn't planned on maintaining any contact whatsoever with him, or anyone from the carrier, unless, somehow, they met again sometime (though she doubted it). He'd _had_ to have known her intentions, of never being seen again by anyone on that carrier—by anyone at all, preferably.

But, it didn't matter. The batteries would either die (even if she never used it, they somehow always managed to burn off their energy, but only more slowly), the phone would break—or someone might rob her and take it (or she might lose it or ditch it once it became dead and useless).

Hearing a difference in the force of the rain, the Israeli turned her head to look out into the street, and was, for one of the first times in a while, quite pleased with what she saw. The rain, while she'd had the satellite phone in her hands, had lessened, to a barely-there drizzle. It was _more_ than bearable, and she knew that soon, it would stop completely—very soon, in fact, and at that, she _almost_ smiled, as she slowly got to her feet, glad for the energy flowing through her body—and she took the bike with her remaining hand and tugged it out of the store, simultaneously hoisting her pack back on her shoulders, the weight of it already becoming familiar to her in the strangest of ways.

_Almost_.

Once she was under the overhand that the unnamed convenient store provided, with her surroundings visible to her once again, she somehow managed to shakily step onto the right pedal, quickly swinging her left leg and arm over the side so that she was now balanced, with her wrist resting on the handlebar.

Before she could lose her balance, the young woman began to pedal forward, out into the open. She had ridden a bike before—a few times, but enough for her to know how to work this one, although it was foreign and large for her frame, and she knew she would have trouble with the fact that she only had one hand, but, she couldn't help but smile at the _feeling_ of having her boot-clad feet off the pavement, after a few long hours of wandering next to a deserted, blood-spattered highway that had been quickly forgotten over the past few days.

The feel of the cold rain was actually welcomed on her skin as she took one, quick look around at where she was, her eyes quickly scouring the vicinity for any change—in anything—but, seeing none, she began pedaling faster (but not too fast; there was no need to exhaust herself before she was even out of town) and soon, she'd left the broken glass, the debris, the sagging shutters and doors, the peeling paint, the emptiness of the entire place—the remains of a once inhabited town in favor of the flat, ongoing highway that seemed to stretch on and on with the occasionally twist (as far as she could see)—and, for the first time in and soon, she'd left the broken glass, the debris—the remains of a once inhabited town in favor of the flat, ongoing highway that seemed to stretch on and on with the occasionally twist (as far as she could see)—and, for the first time in _years_, the Israeli grinned as she felt the breeze turn into a cold, welcomed gust as she pedaled faster and faster, leaving behind the lonely remains of what had once been Kingtan, only looking back once, to make sure that there was anything following her—_just in case_.

There was nothing, nothing that she could see—nothing in the town, nothing on the road behind it and her—so she faced forward, seeing as how there was no other direction to go (and she was the only one on this highway, apparently) and continued on, leaving it behind as easily as she was grinning now.

The first few, seemingly short minutes on the bike were spent examining it, and keeping her eyes on the road (so she wouldn't veer off, crash, and ruin it). It seemed brand new—maybe only used once or twice; there wasn't even a speck of dirt on it—it seemed like it had just come. It was quieter than she was, or so it seemed, on foot.

She messed with the gears a bit—she hated the feeling of running when she wasn't even going that fast—and eventually shifted them into higher gears, till she was comfortable with the speed she'd acquired and the ability to pedal. The seat wasn't uncomfortable; it was padded, but she knew her rear end would be sore, seeing as how she hadn't been on anything like this for an extremely long while (bicycles weren't a novelty in Israel because each and every one that the children of the villages managed to find in piles of forgotten junk and aging rubble from other villages and towns that had been razed to the ground were always rusty, bent, and broken), but it wasn't that big of a deal, not really, not when she had more important things to worry about, like keeping the backpack that seemed a bit lighter on the bike with her at all times, and the gun in her back pocket close—_just in case_—and making sure nothing happened to her food—and, of course, she had to make sure she avoided any and all chances of coming into contact with _anything_—living or dead, it didn't matter; all she cared about was being _alone_ while Gerry tried to fix the rest of the world (she doubted that, even if his plan did succeed—the plan to infect people with a _curable _(her good mood dissipated at the thought) pathogen so they could take out the zombies without the fear of being bitten, the virus, just like every other disease (she'd seen it for herself while in the company of the W.H.O doctors), would _never _really go away. It would take _ages_ in order to wipe out _all _the zombies (that wasn't even possible, she knew it, and she hoped that Gerry and the rest of his comrades knew that as well), and even if they established "safe zones" all around the world, _people_ were still—probably—the biggest threat to her and _everything_ else, whether anyone else realized it or not.

Bitterness took hold of the Israeli as she pedaled on, and she pushed those thoughts out of her mind, and was about to focus her mind and her eyes solely on the road ahead of her when, from far, far behind her, she heard a faint, rumbling sound.

Glancing behind her, she saw—far, far behind her, far behind the remains of Kingtan—there was a tiny speck, one that she could barely make out, but sound was unmistakable, and it made her head towards the right side of the road, a plan to ride though the woodland (if necessary) forming in her mind.

Bitterness was slowly replaced with an exaggerated sense of exasperation, anticipation, and even fear.

That—that noise, the noise she would know from miles away—and, damn, she was hoping she was wrong, seeing as how she'd only seen one once, but she _knew what it _was, and—and _that_—_that_ was a_ motorcycle_.


	7. Chapter 7

The young Israeli woman couldn't be sure if the owner of the motorcycle had seen her yet, but, as a sense of dread begun to weigh her down—make everything seem heavier, heavier than _everything_ on and inside of her already _was_—as she veered into the trees, and before she even knew what she was doing (besides muttering darkly under her breath in Hebrew, her words concerning the idiot who was probably attracting _dozens_ of the living dead with the loudness of the engine), her means of transportation crashing through and over dead and fallen foliage. It was difficult, steering on untouched and uneven ground, trying to avoid trees and stumps and sharp rocks and roots that would send her flying.

She continued to maneuver her way through the trees, aware that the sound of the motorcycle was getting louder and louder—so whoever was on the bike _had_ seen her—and she could actually feel the panic rising within her gut, into her chest cavity, until she couldn't even feel her heart beating as she managed to shift gears to something easier, as she pedaled harder, as she seemed to suddenly go _faster_—her chest cavity was beginning to feel numb; _that was how fast it was beating inside her chest_—and she didn't look back, she couldn't look back, because if she did, she would surely crash the bike into a tree, or send herself flying, and she _did not want that _in the slightest, so she did her best to push the fact that motorcycle was _getting closer_, while not ignoring it, to the back of her mind, so she could just focus on pumping her legs in the _same_ damned circular cycle _over and over and over and over and over _again, until it—the noise of the motorcycle, which had seemed ominous from what she had seen of it (well, everything dark seemed ominous—darkness was _death_, after all, to many things)—finally began to grow fainter, and she almost—_almost_—believed that it had either gone past where she had veered off the highway (the bumpiness of the trail-less terrain was unnatural and it was scaring her, because _sooner or later she was going to fall off_—but that didn't matter this second, because all she had to do was keep going) but, of course, what her ears heard next made her blood run cold for the first time in a long time—not with fear, no, that had been back in Jerusalem, when she had been bitten—no, her blood ran cold with _dread_, one that was probably going to cause her to panic and go even faster.

Her ears heard the engine of the motorcycle _stop_, and the silence that followed it, and seemed to begin perusing her through the trees, she knew that anything even remotely related to luck had left her for the time being—and, how she wished that luck had struck her now instead of before, but there was no use thinking about that now, not when she had to focus on getting the hell _away_ from the highway she'd been on for most of the day as _fast as she possibly could_.

When the sound of the heavy silence reached her ears completely and settled through the trees, the panic, as predicted, started to flow easily through her veins, along with the dread, along with the small amount of fear that had managed to claw its way into her bloodstream—and she knew that adrenaline was also pumping its way through her system, making her go faster than she had ever gone before on any sort of land-appropriate means of transportation. She was going too fast, she knew this, but she didn't care because she _had to keep moving_—not because of the fact that she didn't want to be found, but now, she was certain the owner of the black motorcycle (it must have either been stolen or well kept; she'd seen it glint in the dull light of the late afternoon, though the sun still hid for long amounts of time behind scattered clumps of ominous thunderclouds that seemed to have satisfied their need to wreak havoc on the world beneath them) was now going to attempt to _follow her_.

Segen chanced one, quick glance over her shoulder, and, to her horror, she saw a flash of color—it would have blended in with the trees if she had not been among them for the entire day, looking for anything that was out of place—a color that was a dark, sickly green that might have been mixed with brown, and she knew this color to be a color of a coat, a thick one, too—she'd seen it one soldiers before, not on the ones from home, on a few from the carrier, and that only made her go _faster_, but there was something in her belly, something cold and hollow, that told her she was probably going to either have find a road of some sort sooner rather than later, or ditch the bike—and she _really_ did not want to get rid of this thing, this quiet, solid thing, that helped her cover more ground than her feet would. It could not compare to a helicopter, or a motorboat, or a car, or a _motorcycle_, but it was better than nothing—and luck, such as the kind she'd come across in the remains of Kingtan, was going to be harder and harder to come by, the farther she went from the beach she had been left on by her own doing, and she _knew this_—so she kept going, easily pushing herself faster.

The adrenaline wouldn't fail her now, but it wouldn't last forever. The energy from the small amount of food and drink she'd had had definitely been vital to the escape of whoever was following her (at least, she hoped whoever it was, was only _attempting_ to follow her) through the Canadian woodland, but she knew she would have to stop eventually, because the lack of sleep wasn't helping her, and she knew she'd be feeling the effects once she was out of harm's way (_if _she was in harm's way—which, she hoped she wasn't, because the snapping of twigs far, far behind her had nearly ceased, and her head buzzed with the effort to do so many things at once)—and _that_—that was something she wasn't going to be looking forward to.

She already wasn't.

The Israeli woman suddenly found herself plummeting down a steep dip in the earthy, leaf-covered terrain, and all of the sudden she was going down an even steeper embankment. Her hand clutched at the right handlebar (she was sure the knuckles on that hand were whiter than the snow she was going to see sooner than she would have liked to (because, it was _Canada_ that she was in, and it would snow before October ended—she'd nearly forgotten that winter started very, very early this far north) and her wrist was pressing into the rubber of the left handlebar. It took a hell of a lot more effort than she was used to using, to control the bike, to make sure she didn't crash into the trees that seemed to rush towards her—she had to make sure she kept her balance, no matter how bumpy and unsettling the terrain was.

Naked branches, dead leaves that hadn't fallen to the ground yet, and pine needles scratched at her face as she flew by on the bike, the sounds of her pursuer fading, but that didn't make her slow down or halt where she was—she couldn't just _stop_ merely because she couldn't _hear_ a notable ways behind her. If she kept riding long enough, he might either A) grow tired, B) grow tired of _chasing her_, or C) keep chasing her—though she doubted the last option, because she was riding a _bike_, and since he (she didn't honestly know if it was a man who was following her through the trees, but she hadn't gotten any indication of who the owner of the black motorcycle might be) had left his own means of transportation behind, she was certain that he wouldn't catch up to her. Oh—and there was one more option. Option D) (she could _never_ dismiss this one, though it had never occurred to her to use it in a situation) was that whoever was chasing her might actually _get to her_—and that—_that_ was something she wanted to avoid at all costs.

The soldier glanced around her, only tearing her eyes from what was in front of her for a second—to see if anyone _was _following her—but she saw no one—and the small amount of relief in her system felt _good_.. Segen could feel the adrenaline slowly drain from her system—very slowly—and she used what was left of it to pedal faster, harder—just in case, _just in case_—

In the blink of an eye, before she thought to glance around at her surroundings, before she thought to double check if she was alone, something solid, and hard, smacked her in the side of—well, something had tackled the entire right side of her body, and since the hand that had been doing most of the balancing for her on the bike (and she had been doing _so_ well, too) was her right, her left stub was left to flail helpless as she felt herself flying off the bike and through the air, the impact of the greater part of the left side of her back meeting the ground knocking what wind the thing that had tackled her hadn't out of her.

In the few, precious seconds that was spent trying to regain her breath, with her backpack weighing her down, and her right side aching, her pursuer—now _attacker_, apparently—had her on her stomach, with her right arm twisted behind her back. The right side of her face was pressed down into the dead leaves, into the dirt, and she could taste the earth in her mouth, and a bit of blood (she'd probably bitten her tongue in her surprise), but she ignored this. Instead, she focused on filling her lungs back up with precious, clean air, while trying to calm her erratic heart down, so she didn't have a heart attack (_or something_) on the spot and miss her chance to see _who in the hell _had decided it had been a good idea to chase her through the trees and tackle her off her bicycle. Distantly, someplace else in her mind, she hoped that her bike was okay as her eyes slanted upwards to see who her attacker was.

She got a look at his face—a good look, besides the awkward twisting of her neck that she had to suffer from in order to _look _at him properly. She hadn't really known to expect—she hadn't expected anything but a person, really, but she was surprised to be met with a grin and bright, burning eyes that belonged to a mere _girl_ who couldn't have been more than sixteen—maybe even younger than that.

She was struck speechless, for a moment, as the girl continued to grin at her, before she remembered that she had the ability to speak, and when she remembered, she did, but, forgetting she was in Canada, she snapped at the grinning, bright-eyed girl in Hebrew, because she found that she was _so angry _at this girl, at the world, at the fact that Option D) had actually _happened, _so she just _snapped_:

_"What do you think you're **doing**?"_

The girl recoiled. She probably hadn't expected her to snap back, in _Hebrew_, of all languages, and frankly, she didn't care. She used the girl's moment of surprise to throw her off of her body. Segen quickly got to her feet as she watched the girl regain her balance, and she felt a stab of irritation in her chest when she saw that the girl's grin had only _grown_, and her eyes burned were only _brighter_. She had dirty, tangled, wavy hair, that probably—once—had been a beautiful gold color, but now, it was just as dirty as the rest of her. Her dark skin was stained with streaks of dried mood and even a few specks of blood. She was wearing a black leather jacket, a filthy once-had-been-white tank top underneath, and jeans, that were shredded at the knees, with ragged, blue-and-white tennis shoes. It seemed to the Israeli that this girl probably had spent the first day or so out in the wilderness, and had (probably, and recently) stolen the motorcycle. For someone who might or might not have eaten in the past few days, she had a considerable amount of muscle on her bones, which explained why she had been able to tackle the soldier _so hard_. Her head was still aching, and would probably bruise in a few places, but that didn't really matter—because she saw _her_ knife in the girl's knife. So, not only was this stranger persistent and fast—but she was smart, too.

The young woman was in a fighting stance, with her left wrist pressed to her side tightly, but then she remembered the weapon in her back pocket (it _better not have_ fallen out when the girl had tackled her) and her right hand quickly flew to where she had stuck it, and relief flooded through her—an uneasy, uncertain one, but it was relief nevertheless—as her hand found the gun. She whipped it out in front of her, the safety clicked off with a flick of her thumb, and index finger was on the trigger—lightly. There was no need to spill her blood—after all, she'd underestimated this girl, and maybe—_maybe_ this girl would leave her alone if she saw that she had a gun, and was not to be messed with.

_Maybe_.

The girl's grin—a hearty one that, sadly, did not meet her large, bright green eyes (which might have been a spectacular feat, if that had happened, if they weren't in precarious situation at the moment)—faded a bit, and then, in a split second, twisted into a frown. Her offensive stance quickly changed to that of one that might take off at any second, and the soldier was _not_ going to allow that—not without finding out why she had tackled her in the first place.

Slowly, she repeated herself in English—it was a strange thing, to forget in which tongue she should speak—with less vehemence and anger in her voice.

"_What_ do you think you're doing, girl?"

The girl, again, took on a temporary look of surprise, before a small smile twisted her lips, and her thick, bushy brows relaxed, the lines in her forehead relaxing into a smoother surface. "You speak English, then," she said, and the soldier could identify her accent as a southern American's (the drawl was unmistakable, even if she had only met a handful from the U.S on the carrier before she had attempted to get some sleep on the carrier)—and she had to wonder what she was doing _all the way up in Canada._

The girl's voice was rough—the sandpaper-over-rough-wood kind of rough, like she hadn't had water in some time, and she now held her hands up, but the surrender she seemed to be giving to the older of the two in the woodland seemed almost mocking.

She said nothing, and instead, she gestured towards the knife in the girl's hand with her gun. There was a feeling in her gut that told her she might be speaking more than she'd like to this girl—this dirty, filthy, sneaky girl.

"Oh, you want _this_ back?" the girl snorted, and then the small smile on her thin lips twisted into a smirk—a smirk that the Israeli woman wasn't used to, and she didn't like it. It made her feel like this was some sort of joke, like she was missing something—something important, and she didn't know what.

"Why did you attack me?"

The girl made a _'pftttt' _sound with her lips, and rolled her eyes, still holding her hands above her head. "I didn't _attack _you, lady; all I did was throw myself on you, stopped you from running away, is all I did." She caught a glimpse of the girl's teeth—and nearly grimaced. They were yellowed, and rotten—and she had a feeling that the girl might not have been hiding out in the woods (if she had been, that is) for only a few days. It made her uneasy, how easily this girl's lips twisted into a smile, and how calm she was, and how nonchalant she appeared to be about this situation.

She should have _known_ that her luck had run out on her the instant she'd left Kingtan's remains.

"Why?"

The girl looked amused. "Why _not_?" she asked, her eyes going from the knife, to Segen and then back to the knife again.

It suddenly hit her.

This girl—this lone, rotten-toothed, blonde, filthy girl, who'd somehow stolen a motorcycle, and had not been bitten yet (because she knew that the motorcycles—at least, the fast ones—were available in larger towns and cities)—this girl was _wild_. And being wild probably did a hell of a lot more good in a world like this than being—being _useless_ to everyone but yourself.

And wild things did not get along with Segen, generally.

"Lady, have you _seen _the death 'n the blood out there, scattered in the streets, chasin' you in your own home?" her voice was hard, and bitter—but her toothy smirk was still plastered on her face. The young woman couldn't help but wonder what this girl had been like before she had become wild, because she had obviously not been _born_ wild, or else, like most wild things, she would have just pounced and kill what she'd caught before the thing she'd pounced on could even blink.

The soldier could feel her expression harden into something grim, and the girl seemed to notice. "I know what's _out_ there," she said, her voice low, and shaky—despite the stillness of the hand that was pointing the gun in the wild girl's direction, and she waved her left arm, almost comically, so she could see the stub that would probably be forever wrapped in bandages and cloths. The girl's eyes widened with incredulity, and then narrowed.

"You got _bit_, then, _didn't'cha'_, lady?" her eyes glistened in the late afternoon light—with something that the soldier wasn't comfortable with.

It was hardly even phrased as a question. It was a fact, but still, she nodded in reply.

The girl sighed, and then shrugged, almost nonchalantly—as if they were having some sort of normal conversation that had _nothing_ to do with the dead walking about and infecting the living with their disease.

"You know, when you talk like a normal person, you don't _sound_ like yer' from someplace else."

The Israeli woman felt her expression change into something similar to annoyed "I'm from Israel," she spat, a little more forcefully than intended, "and I speak _Hebrew_, and because you are American, _does not mean you are 'normal'_."

The girl shrugged again.

"'Sides," the girl drawled, returning to the topic that needed addressing, because the older of the two _did not_ enjoy being tackled, "That pack of yers'—looks promisin'."

Her eyes narrowed as the toothy smirk grew on her face.

"Tell ya' what, lady," the girl said, lowering her hands and placing them on her hips, the knife still in her hand (she was awfully calm for someone who had a gun pointed at them), "you trade me sumthan' in that pack of yers', and I'll give you back your knife."

Her first instinct was to say '_hell no_' and spit out at least a dozen different curses in Hebrew _and_ in English, but she decided against it, knowing full well that she had, as of late, been making a lot of (probably) foolish decisions.

Like actually considering the girls' deal.

"D'you even know _how_ t'use a gun lady?" the girl asked, while the soldier considered her the few options she had: shoot her, run, or let her walk away with the knife, but risk getting stabbed in the back. The solider, however, considered what the girl was saying. She really didn't look like a soldier, not without her uniform on—but it was insulting, to be holding a gun and still have her skills doubted by someone who probably hadn't figured out that noise—especially noise like that motorcycle engine—attracted those things, those zombies—but then again, she might have known that already, and just didn't care.

After a few seconds of silence, her jaw clenched tightly. "I was—I _am_ a soldier. I served my country." She had no scathing remark ready for this girl. It was not in her skill set to come up with witty remarks or comebacks while facing a dangerous opponent—it, usually, was her place to shoot whatever was getting in her way (if she had the orders or the cause to, anyway).

The girl's smirk turned into a grin. But the way her lips twisted—it didn't meet her eyes. Her eyes, however bright, seemed dull, and dead. There was something about them—something _about this wild girl_—that she didn't like.

"Take that as a yes'm," the girl said, exhaling loudly through her nose. "You 'bout done choosin' whatcha gonna do?"

Segen slowly nodded.

"Food or water?" She wasn't quite sure if she regretted offering one of her resources to this girl, to this _wild thing_—but, she felt that she might actually pity this girl, though she didn't _really_ know a damn thing about her.

She was willing to trade little else for her knife.

The girl's eyes sparked, though, so she had little to no doubt in her mind that the girl wouldn't _ask _for anything else.

"What kind'a food?" she asked, her grin vanishing into something a little less unsettling—a speculative, tiny smile that seemed to tell her that she knew something that she didn't—and she _hated_ that feeling, hated it more than she hated the fact that she had let her guard down and had allowed this—this wild _thing_ to attack her.

"Protien bars. I can give you half of one." The one she hadn't finished—she wondered if that was okay, offering less than what this girl needed in order to survive. Probably not, but the world wasn't exactly _okay_, but—what was right and what wasn't was forgotten, to a lot of people—at least, that's what she'd seen in the past few days, and she knew it was not much different in other countries, in other places, because they all had people, and among the people, there was death, and there was the virus, the disease, the incurable pathogen that she had done a lot to avoid.

Distantly, she wondered how long this girl would last, till she was bitten. She might not have long, and, at the same time, Segen didn't care _that_ much.

"A whole," the girl said immediately. "I ain't eaten in a day. I won't go starvin' 'cause I gave ya' yer' little _knife_ back." She could hear the sneer in the girl's voice as she spoke, though it didn't show in her face. "'Sides, you've got a gun, don't'cha?"

"Knives don't attract the dead," was all the woman said, as she slowly slid the backpack off her shoulders and onto the ground, sticking her gun in her back pocket once again in order to get the food the girl was asking for out.

"Who cut yer' hand off?" the girl asked, suddenly, breaking the short, solid silence that had settled between them for only a few seconds as the young woman fished out an untouched protein bar and used her teeth to zip the backpack shut. Instead of answering the wild girl's question, she simply tossed the girl the food, and she suddenly found the knife come hurtling at her, and caught it before it could make contact with her body.

"Not much'uv'a talker, huh, lady."

Again, she did not reply, as she put the knife pack in its sheath, and she stood up slowly—just in case the girl decided she wanted to tackle her again—and slid the backpack back onto her shoulders—and onto her left with some difficulty.

"Well, thanks 'fer the food," the girl chirruped, as if this was a normal occurrence between the two of them, even though she didn't even know the wild thing's name, and it knew not of hers (and she preferred to keep it like that). "I guess'll see ya' in hell, then."

Segen blinked.

"That's it?" she asked, before she even thought to wonder if it was a good idea to continue speaking to this girl. "That's all you wanted? Nothing more?"

The girl cocked an eyebrow. She seemed even more amused than before. Really, what was so funny?

"You wan' me to steal sumthan' _else_, lady?"

No, actually, she didn't necessarily want that—not at _all_.

Segen's eyes narrowed, and the girl flashed her a toothy, yellowed grin—and this time, her eyes lit up, just a bit, and, the sight of her green orbs burning made the soldier feel a little more sorry for this girl. Throwing her head back, cackling, she chortled, "Nah', killin' ya's not my job, lady—'s the walking dead who's gonna kill yer' before I does."

Her eyebrows furrowed as the girl turned away. Briefly, she wondered why she didn't whip out her gun and shoot this girl in the head—or at least, shoot her in a less important extremity, for getting the jump on her, for tackling her for _no reason_—for this strange, abrupt, abnormal encounter. She _should_ have killed her, right there, she realized—because she had no doubt in her mind that this wild girl was just as capable as taking a life as she was—but for some reason, she only watched her step over her bicycle (it looked intact, but she would have to study it before she rode it again, to make sure there was no major damage done—and, if there was damage done to it, she was sure that she might kill the blonde-haired girl for ruining her means of getting around Canada) and dashed off, leaving her alone, in the silence.

Kindness didn't get you far when the world was in such a state—the soldier _knew_ this too well, and yet, she had allowed the girl—who could have killed her had any moment, without hesitation, and probably without regret (and, when she thought about it, anyone who could have found her could easily rob her blind, and kill her, or worse, and have no remorse because now it was all about _surviving _in a world where there weren't really any laws or remnants of common sense left)—to walk away, unharmed, with _her_ food—all because she'd wanted her _knife_ back. But she knew that it would be more useful than a gun, in most cases. If she came in contact with a hostile zombie (she had yet to test out Gerry's—_proven correct_—theory about being camouflaged from the virus and its rampaging means of spreading itself), she would need to kill it quietly. A gun shot would attract more of them, and she couldn't afford that—couldn't afford certain death via being torn apart by the walking dead. And if she came across a person, _a living person,_ she could kill them quietly, without alerting anyone else. Plus, a knife didn't have bullets—it couldn't run out of anything, so it wasn't in any way, shape, or form dispensable.

The Israeli soldier sighed, and walked slowly towards her bike. She stared down at it for a few, quiet minutes, until she heard the rumbling of the motorcycle engine starting up, and slowly fade away—until, again, she was left in the silence, to stare at the black bicycle, and, once again, was left to wonder if going off by herself had really been a good idea.

Sighing, thinking that it probably wasn't, she slowly—gingerly—leaned down, grabbed the bike like she had at the convenience store—with her left wrist underneath the metal under the seat and her right hand on its respective handlebar—and hoisted it upright, so the wheels were resting on the ground. Everything seemed in order—if not a little bit dirtier.

After a few more long, silent seconds of expectation, she deemed it fit for use, and carefully climbed on top of it, pushing what had just happened to the back of her mind, in favor, of continuing in the direction she had been going, before she had been tackled off her bicycle.

The highway, she decided, while muttering darkly in Hebrew under her breath, was no longer an option.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry if it seems like the beginning is a bit slow and uneventful, but there will be eventful stuff happening in the near future. Very near future - not so many chappies away, methinks. (Btw, this one is just a bit shorter than the usual length of this fic's chaaaaaaapies so therefore you are warned so please don't hate me or anything. Dang, I haven't done an author's note like this for this story yet! so here's your long unnecessary A/N because I felt like it and Imma shuddap now because you probably want to read now...) I have plans for the plot to this story! (hopefully I actually remember them...) ****On a side note:  
I don't think you people are aware of how happy you've made me with the response to this fic :) Thank you, thank you, thank you!**

* * *

Segen had ridden the bicycle through the night, through the trees, with difficulty, though, as the first signs of dawn, she'd come across a dirt road, but by then, she knew she would have to sleep for a few hours, because, when she had to choose between option (A) sleep in the woods and hope that she didn't get robbed again and option (B) keep going until she found somewhere to stop for a few hours, she would go with (B), because there was no telling who else might come across her in the woodland. The next person or persons she might come across were probably going to be worse than what the wild girl had pulled. While the filthy, southern American had merely tackled her and had held her knife away, and had given it back in exchange for a protein bar (which reminded her: she needed to eat sooner rather than later), someone else might do worse for a little less or little more than a mere protein bar.

She'd stopped the bicycle in the middle of the road at least ten minutes ago, just after finding it. She'd put down the kickstand (because falling off the bike was not on the top of her to-do list—finding a place to sleep for a few hours at most, however, _was_). As soon as she'd gotten her bike on the road, she'd had to stop, because something didn't sit right with her. Something had, in fact, had sat _very wrong _with her, so much in fact that, at the moment, she refused to go any further.

There was a strange, ill-felt stillness in the air that the cold breeze sifting through the trees and through what small amount of hair the Israeli had on her head couldn't even shake. It wasn't as heavy as the silence that the rustling of the naked branches seemed to be drowning in, but it was still _there_. When she inhaled through her mouth, making a gasping sound that seemed too loud for being merely a noisy intake of breath, she tasted something different on her tongue. When she inhaled—a bit more deeply—through her nose, her eyes narrowed, and her head snapped to the left.

_She knew that smell_.

Well, it was more like she knew that _stench_, because, really—after everything that had happened over the last few days (and before that, when she was young), once you catch a whiff of it once, you could never mistake it for anything else, because her nose scrunched up, and she felt bile rise, for a second—a typical reflex that she was used to by now—in the back of her throat. She swallowed, uneasily, because she didn't have to wonder what the smell was coming from, and since it was so faint here—and so _god damn quiet_—she had a feeling that if she went left, she'd find the source of whatever was making that horrid smell (_stench_.)

Her eyes traveled to the tops of the trees—well, as best they could, since the trees flanked the dirt road she'd managed to find without popping a tire on a thorn or rock in the wrong spot in the wrong time (thank _goodness_)—to look for any signs of smoke, because she was sure that the stench (which, upon first inhaling it and seeing what it belonged to, had made her lose whatever food she'd managed to eat that day) belonged to that, which accompanied _burning—_or burnt_—flesh_.

She couldn't help but shudder.

She wasn't really sure if she was willing to explore a new sight that served as an abandoned (hopefully, by now) excuse of civilization (that really wasn't even that anymore, considering it felt like this part of the world hadn't been touched by another person besides herself in a very long while).

But, if the place that held that horrid stench _was_, in fact, abandoned, then, if she covered her nose with a piece of cloth (or at least something of the like) she would be able to catch a few hours' worth of sleep—and that possibility nearly _did_ make her lose whatever food that was left in her stomach come back up, because, at that instant, she decided that she _was not_ going to sleep with the stench of rotting (burnt or burning?) flesh, fresh in her nostrils. No, she figured she might actually spend the night in the woods, and risk her life _and_ her supplies, for a chance to get some rest. Eventually, though, she would need a find a place to rest.

Besides, there was no telling _what_ could be waiting for her if she chose to go left, towards the scent of death—a scent she wanted no part of, and, in fact, she wouldn't mind being as far away as possible from it (but that surely wasn't going to happen anytime soon, given the situation the world had been thrust into quite violently). It could be some sort of trap—a person (or persons) could be waiting to lure someone and then pounce, taking and doing whatever they liked, because, as far as the world was concerned, there wasn't really any lawful things left to do other than what was in there nature—and that was to survive this (zombie) apocalypse. There could be more of those _things_ (zombies—hadn't she already gotten over her uneasy with using that term, or was she really that soft-hearted where it concerned billions—probably—of people that she'd never even met before in her life?) waiting, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to test out her disease quite yet.

Or… Or there could be nothing there, only bodies, and blood, and that _god-awful stench_—and nothing useful at all.

Segen shuddered, and swallowed thickly, her eyes turning towards the direction, which held no scent of death whatsoever (to her nostrils' relief), and frowned. Though something bad probably awaited her if she went right (because the stench of death never came with anything good, and she wasn't sure if she had the patience to sneak around like she had in Kingtan, because all she really wanted to do was _sleep_), she had _no idea_ what awaited her if she dared to go right. And she was certain—now—that nothing good would come of going in either direction. She wasn't sure if the bicycle she'd taken would last any longer, because she didn't know how sturdy these things were when it came to thorns and fallen twigs and rocks and roots and such, and she knew that tires _did_ pop eventually.

And she would prefer that her bike last longer—so the woodland ahead of her was certainly not an option. And this reminded her that when she had first been dropped off on this continent yesterday, around this time (at least, that was what she _presumed_, since the sky was light now)—when she had come across her first road after leaving the (horrible, rocky, chilly excuse of a) beach.

She couldn't help the sigh that passed her lips in a rather loud huff, because she was certain that making this decision shouldn't have been this difficult. Most people, she assumed, would just _go_—go in a direction that suited them. Or, maybe _they_ would have a map and know where the hell they were even going—and here she was, debating it within her head, with drooping eyelids and a slight pounding behind her eyes that told her she _really_ needed to get some rest.

How come this decision had to be so _difficult_?


End file.
